The Cypress Trap

Chapter 4

Near the shoreline, Owen cut off the outboard motor and glided the small bass boat to the sloping concrete ramp. Rayanne stood at the bank and watched as he splashed into the shallow water and marched back onto the bank and over to the Chevy. When he backed the truck and trailer down the concrete slope, he jumped out and waded to the boat. He guided it onto the trailer, secured it, then hopped up the concrete ramp and back into the truck. The Chevy pulled the boat and trailer out of the water and he parked it along the dirt trail. 

Rayanne could only watch, feeling completely useless. “Sorry. I know Darryl is probably more help than I am.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. He was pulling a rolled up sleeping bag and a large green canvas tote from the truck bed. Rayanne approached him. 

“What are we doing? I thought we’d go back into town?”

“We’re camping.” He went on in that same calm, careful voice. His lava-fuming-just-below-the-surface voice, she called it. 

“Is that a tent? I’m sure there’s a bed and breakfast--”

“We’re not going back into town.” He tossed the tent bundle onto the ground. The metal poles inside clanked together. She stepped closer to him, and grabbed an end of the tote. She pulled out a long, curved pole.

“Why?” she asked.

“You said you wanted to start fishing with me. Welcome to a fishing trip.” He was inserting two metal rods together. “You don’t think Darryl and I stay at a bed and breakfast, do you?”

Rayanne paused. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Setting up the metal frame, they each took an end of the tent fabric and stretched it out. Then Rayanne answered, her voice steady and unemotional, but not submissive. “Okay. You’re absolutely right. We’re on a fishing trip and we’re going to camp out. I can handle that.”

She stretched the fabric across the metal frame, but realized it didn’t fit. Owen came up beside her, taking it from her hands. He flipped it so that the ends lined up with metal poles. When they were locked together, he set the pieces on the ground and walked back to the large tote. A beep from the cell phone attached to his belt interrupted him. He put down the bag and grabbed the phone. 

“You get a text message?” Rayanne asked him. He ignored her, clearly engrossed in typing a message on his phone. She moved toward him. “Is it Darryl? How did he do in the bass tournament?”   

 “Why don’t you gather some firewood?” he said without looking at her. “We can have a camp fire.”

Rayanne smiled. “That sounds… romantic.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He seemed absorbed in the text message.

She watched him a moment, then sighed, looking at the Cypress tress surrounding them. The woods writhed with shadows, unseen birds and squirrels moving in the branches above. Cicada bugs droned with a rising and falling chatter.

She stared out into those shadows a moment, then marched forward. With Owen in a bad mood, she could use some time to herself, and decided to take a walk.

*  *  *  * 

For more than thirty minutes Rayanne followed the shoreline of the lake, passing several half-buried boulders among the thin cypress trees. She stared at the evergreens in front of her, and grabbed a branch. She pulled it down, feeling its spindly, rough leaves and the small, rounded woody cones at the end. Releasing the branch, she let it slap back up into the tree with a loud thwhaaaap that echoed through the upper canopy. 

For some reason, it made her feel better and she turned her attention to the ground. She collected several sticks along the way, some rotted, others were dirty with ants crawling in them. She placed the sticks in a pile to collect later, then saw another large log a few feet away, deeper into the forest.

Stepping hesitantly from the bank, she moved through the thick brush toward the log. She could hear birds flutter in the trees above her, as if something spooked them. Perhaps it was her. 

She looked back at the lake. The tree-lined, east bank gave way to a murky swamp curving back into the distance. Owen would’ve called it ‘Florida Conservation,’ she thought. It seemed almost impenetrable, and Rayanne paused. She heard a rustle in the brush. 

Just a few feet away, she saw a doe feeding on grass growing in the sunlight near the water. A fawn stepped beside her and reached its head around in front of its mother. Pushing against the side of her face to move her head out of the way, the fawn stiffened its legs. 

Rayanne smiled. She hoped to find deer. Moving as slowly and quietly as she could, she removed her cell phone from her front pocket. She held it in front of her face and snapped a photo.

The soft click startled the deer. The doe turned her head, spotted Rayanne and froze, twitching her ears. A second later, both the doe and the fawn leapt into the brush.

Rayanne hated scaring them away, but turned her phone around to bring up the photo. She stared at it, smiling, and thought it was a postcard worthy picture.  

Hesitating at the water’s edge, she turned her head back toward the trees to see if she could still see the deer as a mouth came out of the water. It snapped at her, and Rayanne jumped backwards, dropping her phone and scrambling further up onto the bank. She fell to the grass and looked back. The bony head a large gator submerged under the water.

A few feet from the bank, the water boiled.

Bubbles rose.

In a moment the water’s surface became calm once again.

Getting to her feet, Rayanne snatched up her phone and ran into the woods. She ran as fast as she could, through the brush and trees. She didn’t know how far she ran, or for how log. When she felt winded, she slowed down. That’s when she saw the dirt trail.

Two ruts in the ground, just like the path they took from the main road that cut out toward the lake. Rayanne headed for the path, hoping it would lead her back to the boat ramp. 

When she reached it, she walked for quite a while, not sure what direction she headed. She hoped she was getting closer. She noticed the pine and oak trees growing thicker around her, spindly arms that reached out for her and scratched her as she pushed her way through. Hesitating, she knew she had to be walking in the wrong direction, moving further away from the lake.

About to turn around, she heard a high pitched cry. It almost sounded like a woman crying, or shrieking for help. Then she heard it again. From her experience at the animal shelter, she knew it wasn’t human. It had to be an animal. 

A trapped animal. 

A hurt animal.

The cry rang out again, and Rayanne pushed through the branches toward the direction it was coming from. Moving a pine branch away, she found a clearing.  

In the center of the clearing was an old cabin, like something childhood fairy tales had warned her about.